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A long time ago – but not that long – I had a stall at a craft market in Palmerston North, alongside a long term crafter and fellow market goer, Cathie. She makes everything 😀 Felted badges. Knitted and crocheted goods. Sooo many awesome things. And off the top of my head I went, ooh I’d really love to get a helmet hat and beard, did you think you could make one sometime? And she said yes, and I went WHOOO! And that was the last of it until she remembered, and reminded me, and went and MADE IT. Yesterday, I went and picked it up. An amazing, one of a kind, knitted and crocheted helmet hat and beard. Prepare for photos!

Helmet and beard! Yes, I moustache you a question. Is this not the most magnificent?!

I did ask for a rainbow beard, even though I haven’t seen one anywhere, and it is much more awesome than I expected. It’s also separate from the hat, so I can wear it with other hats. And wear it I will, it keeps my face sooo nice and warm 😀 Plus, bad skin day? Who’d know?! And check it out with the visor down…

Then just the helmet on it’s own – the visor is attached with some seriously cool buttons (functional!) and can be raised or lowered. When charging someone. With a crochet hook maybe. 😀

Closer look at the crest – that amazing red wool crest took her 7 hours to make – and she is FAST at this. I have some guilt. Which is offset by also having the coolest helmet ever. 😀

Cathie has her Facebook page here – you could always ask for something, she is lovely. She also has the most amazing things at craft markets! She has said she won’t make a crest quite like this one again (totally understandable) so I’ll gloat about my amazing one of a kind helmet … and anyone who wants something similar could always ask 😀

Right, I’m off to leap onto my hobby horse and ride off into the sunset. Wish me luck and send me sunscreen!

The second part of this rainbow of gorgeous polishes made by my super clever mother 😀

Fuchsia pink:

These photos show two coats, no top coat.

This is such a vibrant pink with a very slight orange duochrome effect in the right light. It’s not as deep a colour as Raspberry Sherbert, but along the same lines.

The formula on this was lovely, but some of the polish would come screaming down the brush at random intervals, and painting the first few nails was an exercise in reflexes. After those it settled down, and this had the best coverage of the lot, only needing those two coats. Dry time was really fast as well.

Gorgeous holographic effect and shine

Teal:

3 coats here, no top coat.

This one was a bit sheer, but a lovely teal – aqua colour with a nice holographic shimmer.

I noticed a slight green duochrome in direct sunlight, too!

Marine:

3 coats, no top coat.

This shows on the nail as a dusty denim type blue, with a slight teal tinge.

Nice strong holographic effect, no duochrome though.

Very pretty and flattering on my (olive based) skin tone!

Blurple.

3 coats, no top coat.

This one was a bit patchy and sheer on the first coat, but leveled nicely on the second, I preferred the depth at 3 coats (shown here)

Oh my goodness. I ADORE this polish.

I think my mother thinks that she is getting this polish back, but in fact she’s NOT. I’ve claimed it as payment for all the swatching heh heh heh heh

This polish is very fast drying, with a lovely strong holographic effect.

All of these polishes (and the Part One polishes) were made using the Joss Suspension base from Beauty World Australia, and holographic flakes, not spectraflair 🙂

More! Yes! We love making these, and I love sharing them, and having a record of what we made.

This is a beautiful red jelly with glitter polish that my gorgeous mother made just for MEEEE!

My nail isn’t in the best shape, but the polish itself is gorgeous. Glossy, smooth, pretty quick drying. This is using one of the red tinters from Beautyworld, in Australia

It is still sheer, this is three coats, but I could layer it if I wanted. I do love how streak free it is!

And here’s another crelly glitter polish I made – I think it’s pretty cute. My ring finger only has one coat of polish – I could say it was to show you how it builds, which is PARTIALLY true – but it only happened because I hit my hand on something and took my polish off, so thought I’d take the opportunity. Clumsiness – my middle name 😀

Three coats, China Glaze Fast Forward top coat. This does need a bit of thinning, but I really like the soft pastel effect 🙂

This looked all soft and squishy… and sadly, it was! There is a ding on my index nail too… whoops.

Then I layered two coats over Kleancolor White, and it looked a lot more stark white, but was easier to work with, and the pastel glitters stood out really nicely.

I love the shine!

I sort of feel bad about this next one. This is a cool polish from Mmmmm Nails, called The Boy Who Broke My Heart. And I love the concept, the large glitters in a clear base with small silver and iridescent glitters, but.. there wasn’t ENOUGH big glitter in it!

So I added more. More matte black circle, holographic butterflies, black hearts, and medium sized green circle glitters. I do think this needs some more mid sized glitters though, it seems a little unbalanced, glitter size-wise, to me. This is one coat of The Boy Who Broke My Heart – upsized – over Nfu Oh 67.

And last but not least, here is another upsized polish: Jordana Lilac Hearts, plus MOAR glitters.

The gorgeous Danielle gifted me this for Xmas, and when I bought some glitters I just KNEW they’d work well with the lilac hearts and cute little iridescent glitters of Lilac Hearts.

Here I’ve layered one coat over China Glaze Gaga for Green – and it reminds me of a garden. Absolute love. I think this would look lovely over quite a few different base coats, too! Thanks for getting this polish for me, Danielle! I hope you don’t mind that I put more in it, but I love it sooo much like this 😀

I do really like the base of the Jordana polishes for suspending big glitter, they just don’t seem to sink at all!

Very recently my mother and I (mostly my mother!) bought a whole bunch of amazing products from Beautyworld Australia – as they’ve been able to jump flaming hoops, wrestle paperwork dragons, and defeat mountains of legal requirements in order to be able to ship dangerous good internationally. And by dangerous, I mean, pretty polish related goodies: suspension base, spectraflair, thinner, and dye for nail polish. We are still using an alternate suspension base, but I am really looking forward to using the Joss base again; it’s cloudier but dries clear, and smells much nicer 😀

This is a long series of polishes my mother and I have made in the last few weeks, using the new Joss products, and some solvent resistant glitters I have sourced from Glitter Unique and You Mix Glitters. I love the dyes! With them we make JELLY polishes. And their pigments are so gorgeous, we’ve really only just scratched the surface of all the pretties we can make with these!

First up: Denim and Sequins, a polish I made – blue jelly holographic base with blue circle glitters.

Being a jelly it takes a bit more skill to get the layers even, and I sometimes lack this skill – hence the reason my index fingernail is lighter in colour than the others 😀

I do like the way the glitters shine through the jelly layers in the shade, and the scattered holographic glimmers in the sun. All season win!

My mother made this gorgeous polish, and I’ll happily admit I wish I had made it.

She tends to gravitate a bit more towards the pink and red colours, and this one is a beauty.

This is RS – I do have to ask what that stands for. I’m going to say it means Raspberry Sherbet, because that’s what this reminds me of! These photos show three thin coats, and China Glaze Fast Forward top coat.

It’s SUPER shiny on it’s own, and dry time is moderately quick, but I don’t have time for moderately quick, so on went the top coat. This is a bit sheer, but the depth at three coats was just gorgeous, and there was very little VNL.

Look at the holo! Look at that shine! The colour was gorgeous, and has that slight red duochrome that some of these deep pinks can – on certain angles this was red. I’m not sure if it comes through in the photos as well, but it was definitely there in real life.

And here’s a couple of pastel glitter pretties that ended up being a much different colour than my sample was! This happens often, sadly – and also happily, because I do usually really like the ‘accidental’ colour, and I can always try again for my original concept 😀

shade

This was supposed to be much yellower, but I overdid the small emerald green flakes, and it changed the look completely. I love it though! It does need a few drops of thinner, which I’ll do soon. This is three coats, with a thick top coat.

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And a comparison with the second bottle – I was colour correcting this back to a yellower base, but they do still look quite similar in the bottle: I did add some different glitters to the matte bright coloured glitters in the original, including some gold circle glitters which I love.

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This shows that circle glitter better – and the contrast between the soft pastel yellow and the lime-ish green. Three coats of both, with the thick top coat.

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And here is the yellow on it’s own, I really like this one. I love the other one too, but I just prefer this one a tiny bit more, with it’s gold glimmers and flakes. My index and ring fingers have three coats, little and middle nails have two coats. All have the thick top coat 🙂

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I must say, I adore the liquid dyes from Beautyworld. They have a really pretty effect, and the colours are gorgeous. They are quite thick, as are the all the pigments we’ve ever bought, which is why a few drops of thinner helps. It also means that only a small bit of dye or pigment is needed, generally!

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And here is a purple my mother made, from some of the Beautyworld pigments. It also needs some thinner, which I personally quite like doing because you get MORE polish! heh. heh. heh. But here are three coats, no top coat. It was plenty shiny on it’s own!

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Stop looking at my little fingernail. I told you I needed to thin it down, ok? 😀 It has quite a complex shimmer, this polish, which is also moderately subtle. The colours are all there, but they don’t leap out and smack you between the eyes.

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Unless you layer it over black, of course. This is one coat of the purple shimmer over one thick coat of China Glaze Liquid Leather. No top coat.

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It was a tiny bit brush-strokey, which again would be fixed with thinning. I love the richness of this purple over the black!

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And this polish is called Corrina’sOoh – odd, I know. But I was mixing up some polish ideas and I showed my NOT polish addicted sister them and she was pretending to be impressed. Until she saw this one, and I got the first genuine “Oooohhh!” from her. So I made a few, and gave her a bottle, and strutted around like a king 😀 A female king, that is. The strut would remain the same.

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I’m going to thin this one down a tiny bit too, but I so adore the colour and shimmer. These photos show two coats, no top coat.

overcast sun…

And finally, a couple of quick photos of a glitter top coat I made – multi sized and shaped glitters in gold, silver, and gold and silver holographic, in a clear base.

Really sparkly and pretty, I have since used this glitter topper over almost everything! This is one coat of the glitter over the two coats of Corrina’sOooh.

And there you have it! A whole bunch of new creations, all except Corrina’sOooh were made in the last two weeks – we are having such a lot of fun. This weekend I have planned how to make the polish Sister V has been asking for, so fingers crossed I can make that work. Have a great weekend, everyone!